Remember back in 2007 when the Why So Serious? ARG started, bearing its first fruits in the form of our first look at Heath Ledger? Yeah, I can’t believe it was that long ago too. We’re now two months away from San Diego Comic-Con, and it’s fitting that WB would start up some form of viral for the third film in Christopher Nolan’s franchise. Even though there hasn’t been much official coverage for any of his Bat-films at the annual con, the convention has embraced the viral promotion, and we can expect the same in July, I’m sure.

It went down like this (or rather, up): www.thedarkknightrises.com played a looped .wav file with some weird tribal chanting (presumably something to do with the League of Shadows or lazarus pits); some crafty cats found the twitter hashtag #thefirerises hidden in the audio (that’s some Hackers shit right there); the more people tweeted that hashtag, the more an image would be revealed on the site, very similar to how we first saw the Joker. Now, as of this writing, the image hasn’t fully filled in yet, but somehow every site on the internet has the proper image, in big ‘ol hi-res too. That image: our first look at Tom Hardy as Bane. Check it out (image and sleuthing via Joblo.com):

(Click to make picture appear larger in size)

What we have there is a buff Tom Hardy, with no shirt on, and a funky Mortal Kombat gas-mask. Looks like he’s wearing cargo pants too. I have no real commentary on this one. I’m intrigued at the thought of Christopher Nolan taking on such an uninteresting, static villain, and perhaps making him remarkable or entertaining in some way. Until I can see it on-screen, I’m just not interested in the character. It seems however, that the collective internet, is shitting their pants over this reveal. Nevertheless, let’s see if the viral marketing continues; the Why So Serious? ARG was nothing short of incredible.

HA! No. Knightfall is a terrible book. My point was that prior to that book, Batman really only fought villains that were very cerebral. You could make the argument for Croc or Solomon Grundy in brute force. But never was there an opponent that possessed both the mental threat along with the physical strength to rival Batman. Bane had that in Knightfall.

After he broke the back, he went on in the role with the mindless violence-but for the moment in Knightfall, he was honestly a good match-up. I hope that’s the direction they go with this movie.

Come on. No one can ever beat Batman & Robin. So many good characterizations, good storytelling and amazing dialogue. And Bane’s character development was spell binding…. So bad. Even after a failed marriage and several love children, its still not worse than what Arnold did in that movie.